The next step was all the other small pieces. I wanted to keep the colors subdued because the skin was going to be really prominent and I didn't want them to clash. At this point I also quickly laid down the texture for the clothes, such as a simple leather and cloth texture. This was mostly for color previewing (Fig.12).

Fig. 12

For the head I used the mental ray miss_fast_skin shader. Before any textures were applied, I set up all my SSS layers. I knew from the start what colors I wanted so it was all down to getting the right settings and balance between mainly the epidermal and subdermal. I was trying to get a fleshy look, but with a deep blue/purple right under the surface. I kept the diffuse on a little just to smooth out and desaturate the test render (Fig.13).

Fig. 13

For the final setup, I plugged in the SSS node into the Additional Color of an mia_material. I did this so I could use the reflection/gloss from that material instead of the specular/reflection of the skin material (Fig.14).

Fig. 14

The diffuse maps were done in Bodypaint. It was a combination of photo textures and hand painting. I was especially mindful of the subdermal map. I painted things like veins and tattoos to get that "under the skin" look (Fig.15).

Fig. 15

Here is the raw render of the textured head (Fig.16).

Fig. 16

For the eyes, I modeled them pretty normally with separate pieces for the eyeball/cornea/iris. I was really experimenting when it came to the look of the eye. I wanted the eyes to definitely stand out on the character so I chose to darken the white part and kind of exaggerate the bump and reflectivity. I used a SSS shader for the eyeball itself with some noise for the different skin layers. (Fig.17)